Finish the Phrase Trivia
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94 free Finish the Phrase trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
55 free Finish the phrase trivia questions with answers. Finish the phrase trivia is the easiest game to run and the hardest to stop: read the first half of a saying and let people shout out the ending. This set gives you 34 classic proverbs to complete, from a bird in the hand and a stitch in time to sleeping dogs and the squeaky wheel, each with four multiple-choice endings so it works online, on a phone or read aloud at a party, a classroom or a seniors' activity hour. The second half of the quiz asks where the strangest phrases came from: why we bite the bullet, who first turned a blind eye, which Aesop fable gave us sour grapes, what curiosity originally did to the cat, and whose thunder was stolen at a performance of Macbeth. Those questions run harder, so mix and match by difficulty. Every ending and origin has been checked against a reference source rather than another trivia list, and where the true origin is unknown the question says so instead of repeating a myth. Looking for song endings? Try BrainPickle's song lyrics trivia instead.
30 of 94 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Finish the phrase: "A bird in the hand is worth two in the ___"
bush
The saying is usually traced to medieval falconry, where a trained bird on the glove was worth far more than any prey still loose in the undergrowth.
Q 02Finish the phrase: "A leopard cannot change its ___"
spots
It comes from the Book of Jeremiah, which asks whether the Ethiopian can change his skin or the leopard his markings.
Q 03Finish the phrase: "A penny saved is a penny ___"
earned
It is often credited to Benjamin Franklin, though his Poor Richard's Almanack actually printed a slightly different wording.
Q 04Finish the phrase: "A rolling stone gathers no ___"
moss
The proverb gave the world's most durable rock band its name, by way of a Muddy Waters song.
Q 05Finish the phrase: "A watched pot never ___"
boils
Benjamin Franklin used a version of it in 1785, and it is a favourite of physicists explaining the quantum Zeno effect.
Q 06Finish the phrase: "Absence makes the heart grow ___"
fonder
The line appears in a 1602 poem, and its exact opposite, out of sight, out of mind, is an equally old proverb.
Q 07Finish the phrase: "An apple a day keeps the ___ away"
doctor
The Welsh original from the 1860s was less catchy: eat an apple on going to bed, and you'll keep the doctor from earning his bread.
Q 08Finish the phrase: "Beauty is in the eye of the ___"
beholder
The exact wording is credited to Irish novelist Margaret Wolfe Hungerford in 1878, though Shakespeare had said much the same in Love's Labour's Lost.
Q 09Finish the phrase: "Beggars cannot be ___"
choosers
It appears in John Heywood's 1546 collection of English proverbs, one of the earliest books of its kind.
Q 10Finish the phrase: "Blood is thicker than ___"
water
A medieval German version says kin-blood is not spoiled by water, which one scholar read as meaning family bonds survive baptism.
Q 11Finish the phrase: "Cleanliness is next to ___"
godliness
It is not in the Bible, despite what many assume; the wording comes from a 1778 sermon by John Wesley, founder of Methodism.
Q 12Finish the phrase: "Discretion is the better part of ___"
valour
Falstaff says a version of it in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1, to justify playing dead on the battlefield.
Q 13Finish the phrase: "Every cloud has a silver ___"
lining
The image comes from John Milton's 1634 masque Comus, which describes a cloud turning out its silver lining on the night.
Q 14Finish the phrase: "Familiarity breeds ___"
Q 21Finish the phrase: "No man is an ___"
island
It opens a famous passage from a 1624 meditation by the poet John Donne, which also gave Hemingway the title For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Q 22Finish the phrase: "People who live in glass houses should not throw ___"
stones
Chaucer had a version in the 1380s, and George Herbert recorded a near-modern form in 1651.
Q 23Finish the phrase: "Out of sight, out of ___"
mind
It was already a proverb in the 1200s, and it is the exact opposite of absence makes the heart grow fonder, so pick whichever suits your mood.
Q 24Finish the phrase: "Strike while the iron is ___"
contempt
Aesop's fable of the fox and the lion makes the same point: the fox is terrified at first sight, then chats to the lion by the third meeting.
Q 15Finish the phrase: "Fortune favours the ___"
bold
The Latin form, audentes fortuna iuvat, appears in Virgil's Aeneid and is the motto of several military units.
Q 16Finish the phrase: "Honesty is the best ___"
policy
The line is usually credited to Sir Edwin Sandys, an English politician writing around 1599.
Q 17Finish the phrase: "It takes two to ___"
tango
The phrase was coined by a 1952 song made famous by Pearl Bailey, and Ronald Reagan later used it about US-Soviet relations.
Q 18Finish the phrase: "Look before you ___"
leap
It shows up in the same 1546 Heywood collection as many English proverbs, and is often paired with its opposite, he who hesitates is lost.
Q 19Finish the phrase: "Many hands make light ___"
work
Its cynical cousin, too many cooks spoil the broth, argues exactly the reverse, which is why proverbs never settle an argument.
Q 20Finish the phrase: "Necessity is the mother of ___"
invention
The idea goes back to Plato's Republic, where need is called the creator of things.
hot
It comes straight from the blacksmith's forge, where iron can only be shaped in the moments after it leaves the fire.
Q 25Finish the phrase: "The pen is mightier than the ___"
sword
In that exact wording it dates only to 1839, in Edward Bulwer-Lytton's play about Cardinal Richelieu, the man who also gave us the phrase the dark and stormy night.
Q 26Finish the phrase: "The squeaky wheel gets the ___"
grease
An American proverb sometimes traced to a poem by Josh Billings, and its opposite is a Japanese saying that the nail that sticks up gets hammered down.
Q 27Finish the phrase: "Too many cooks spoil the ___"
broth
It has been recorded in English since at least 1575, and almost every language has its own version about the same kitchen.
Q 28Finish the phrase: "When in Rome, do as the ___ do"
Romans
The advice is credited to Saint Ambrose in the fourth century, who told Augustine to follow local custom about fasting on Saturdays.
Q 29Finish the phrase: "The grass is always greener on the other side of the ___"
fence
The Roman poet Ovid wrote that the harvest is always richer in another man's field, two thousand years before anyone had a suburban lawn.
Q 30Before curiosity, which word was said to have killed the cat in the proverb?
Care
The answer is Care: Ben Jonson and Shakespeare both used care killed the cat, with care meaning worry; curiosity only replaced it in the 1800s.